It asks whether or not gas prices (which at that time were hovering around the $3) would ever go below the $2 mark. Rememeber now, this was over two years ago, before the whole oil crisis hit with prices shooting up into the $100s. Just about everybody who replied to that thread thought there was almost no way we'd see prices even close to the $2 mark, not to mention some of the people on here who just a few months ago were posting saying that it would be up to $15 within a year. Well, low and and behold when I was drivin back from MKE through Oak Creek today I saw a station that was selling for $1.99 per gallon. Shocking, right? And yeah you can say all that stuff about how the economy is bad, but I still think it proves all those people wrong who are so ominous at the first sign of a price increase. I've just kinda been a bit skeptical the entire time and I think people just need to relax a bit over the matter.

Will you watch the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions on Sunday? Only if coach Eric Mangini resigned after a loss.

It's odd, but over the last week to 2 weeks, the price started to climb back up around me a little. I was thrilled when I got a tank at $2.43, now I am seeing $2.47 again and over $2.50 by my parents, while some stations are dropping into the $2.3# range. I guess sometimes it just takes a little extra time to trickle its way over here.

Amusingly enough, any gas over $1.50/gallon or so seems expensive to me (even if it's really not - I know very well that we have cheaper prices here than many countries). Probably because soon after I started driving, in late high school, prices were down to $0.97/gallon.

Yes gas prices are dropping, but if you're one of the newly unemployed that doesn't help much. We're still about $2.29 here in Arizona and I don't think that it will drop much further. OPEC is already working to cut production-I think that $40 a barrel is their target mark. If demand drops much more, expect further production cuts.

"When a man runs on railroads over half of his lifetime he is fit for nothing else-and at times he don't know that."

Well lets just see how prices are in 10 years. Why not just drill now and stop giving money to places that do even like the US.

Quoting FruteBrute (Reply 15):$1.50 or $2.00 per gallon gasoline is not in the long term interest of our nation

Well if the ecnomy is good and prices can remain that low I dont see a problem with it. I rather have all the other non-oil companies like Airlines for example making money while oil companies dont make $14 Billion dollars! Low oil means low cost of things which mean more people buy. I cant see why 1.50-$2.00 a gas would hurt anyone but the oil companies.

As far as gas under $2.00 I have not seen it under $2.50 in the DC area but I only drive about once a week.

"It was just four of us on the flight deck, trying to do our job" (Captain Al Haynes)

Too right. $2/gallon simply is not part of the long term future of your (or anyone else's) nation, much less its interest.

You would not say that if knew how economies actually work. If the price of transport becomes prohibitvely high, as anything above $2.90 is in the US is, there is nothing positive or acceptable about that.

I do agree, however, that a side effect of temporarily cheap oil is that other solutions will not be prioritized. Lowered fuel costs will give issues like health care and social spending far too much attention (as if they didn't have that already), and set us a bit too far back, technologically speaking. I think prices around $2.80 or so per gallon will satisfy the needs of our economy, but be "painful" enough to promote alternatives, and that is where we need to be.
Don't get me wrong, I like that I spent only $1.83/gal yesterday (Go Texas!), but that can't last forever.

As for all this ho-ha about a contracting economy... Get over it. We have far too many people in this country to support the standard of living we like. It is inevitable that people will lose jobs. No amount of voting or tinkering with Wall Street will change that.

Many states are getting into serious deficits as the economy contracts revenue is sharply declining from income, sales and other taxes, yet they have continuing obligations such as education, health care for the poor, unemployment and others. I suspect that with that some states will take advantage of gasoline prices going under $2 gallon (yesterday I saw $1.94/gal) and raise gasoline (not diesel) per gallon taxes to close part of that gap and to hold down demand with it's positive side effects. It wouldn't take much, perhaps 10 cents a gallon in the lower taxing states, with the raises done in incriments over several months.

Problem is of course that the higher taxes would more likely go into 'general revenue' and not so much for their primary purpose, to pay for road maintence. Road maintence has suffered due to the much higher prices of oil based asphalt and equipment fuel. If the new taxes were dedicated to road maintence and replacing bridges, it would circulate money into good paying jobs, improve the safety of our roads saving lives from fewer accidents, less problems with damaged vehicles, improving traffic flow benefiting businesses and long term enviromental benefits.

Quoting Mke717spotter (Thread starter):but I still think it proves all those people wrong who are so ominous at the first sign of a price increase

It shows a very basic principle that fuel prices are driven by demand, period. It wasn't Bush's fault or OPEC or the futures. Supply and demand. If we use a lot of gas the price will rise rapidly. If we don't and production drops so does the price. This just proves the point. If the people making the oil know we are going to use a lot it will go back up. Happens over and over. The previous spike was a perfect oppurtunity for the media to blame Bush and the government but that is smoke and mirrors. Conserve and use less and you will pay less. Simple.

Quoting Flymia (Reply 19):Well if the ecnomy is good and prices can remain that low I dont see a problem with it. I rather have all the other non-oil companies like Airlines for example making money while oil companies dont make $14 Billion dollars! Low oil means low cost of things which mean more people buy. I cant see why 1.50-$2.00 a gas would hurt anyone but the oil companies.

Why? Because at $1.50 or $2.00 per gallon means the consumer has virtually no incentive to use a product (oil) that is not in this country's best interest to use whole hog like we have been. In fact by having a retail gasoline tax (meaning on consumers & not trucking companies and the like) it tamps down usage. Look what happens when prices for everyone hit $4.50? Everything from food to airline tickets to diesel and natural gas hikes goes thru the roof.

The US Govt has been subsidizing every gallon of gasoline for decades and supplying it to consumers for less than actual cost to this country. Right now our gas tax collected doesn't pay for all the actual highway dollars we spend. Nor does it even begin to cover $1 worth towards the two full time carrier groups we have to station in the Gulf to keep a steady flow of "cheap" oil, much less the war we have fought for the same reason. Nor does this come close to funding the pollution and air quality issues it causes.

We can't continue to buy something in such large quantities from an area of the world that is so opposed to us, and then send them hundreds of billions per year to fund even more hostile groups. Wake up America!

25 KaiGywer
: It feels great to fuel up without feeling robbed. Cheapest I've seen around here is $1.92 so far. Diesel is still hovering around $3 though

26 VC10
: In the states how much is diesel compared to petrol, as here in the UK it would seem that the oil companies are lowering the price of petrol so as to

27 DocLightning
: Don't celebrate too much, folks. It'll bounce back. It has to. In the mean time, would the airlines PLEASE rescind all the absurd fees they put on us?

28 Mke717spotter
: Opps, your right, I meant to write it the other way around my bad.

29 Venus6971
: Filled up for 1.77 here in OKC but it was a 10% ethanol blend which gets less than 2 MPG dropoff than pure gasoline in a pickup. Being a Ok State fan

30 SkyyKat
: I'll have to respectfully disagree. While to some extent you are right, OPEC is not a fair factor in the 'supply' aspect of S&D. If every oil produce

31 Seb146
: AFAIK, only one station in Lake Oswego is at $1.99. Up the street from me at ARCO, it is $2.15. Tri-Met, our regional transit agency, says ridership i